If I were Leni Robredo, a top political operative told me last weekend, I’d take the cheating charges against her very, very seriously—or any charges that may be filed against her, for that matter. Now that she’s been proclaimed vice president by Congress, she may be in for a wild ride that could, this guy told me, culminate in the installation of none other than Alan Peter Cayetano to the second-highest post in the land, just like Cayetano always wanted.
Forget about Robredo being Plan B of the Aquino administration, the Trojan horse left behind by Noynoy as a “gift” to Rodrigo Duterte, to take over and preside over a Yellow restoration in case “The Punisher” is somehow unable to finish his term. The newest plot purportedly being batted around in the smoke-filled rooms of political conspirators is “Plan C,” the impeachment not of Digong but of Leni, in order to reunite Cayetano with his wildly popular and victorious running mate by the backdoor.
If the supposed template for Duterte’s ouster is the impeachment of Joseph Estrada, the removal of Robredo has its roots in the takeover of Teofisto Guingona Jr. as vice president of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in January 2001, after she replaced Erap. That was when, by operation of an obscure provision of the 1987 Constitution, Arroyo chose Guingona (the elder, not his son TG, who just lost in the May 9 elections) to be her vice president after her assumption to the presidency.
Article 7 Section 9 of the charter provides that “[w]henever there is a vacancy in the Office of the Vice President during the term for which he was elected, the President shall nominate a Vice President from among the Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives who shall assume office upon confirmation by a majority vote of all the Members of both Houses of the Congress, voting separately.” This was how Guingona assumed the vice presidency from among a field of six senators at the time (Guingona, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and Senators Franklin Drilon, Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and Loren Legarda) who were short-listed by Arroyo as her replacement as VP after she assumed Estrada’s post.
Guingona was basically rammed down Arroyo’s throat by the anti-Estrada crowd as a result of the senator’s role in the impeachment trial of Erap. That was because Guingona delivered his “J’accuse” speech against the sins of Estrada—even if Guingona soon fell out of favor with Gloria and was replaced in the 2004 ticket by broadcaster Noli de Castro.
Hey, it could happen, my friend told me. And all it takes is to get Robredo impeached by the Duterte-controlled House and ousted by the Cayetano-controlled Senate (assuming he becomes Senate president) on any impeachable charge, not just cheating in the last elections.
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So I asked my friend, wouldn’t Senator Ferdinand Marcos be the beneficiary of the ouster of Robredo on the charge of cheating and by rights replace her? Why would it be Cayetano instead of Marcos who becomes VP?
“You are talking about the election protest that Bongbong will soon file,” he explained. “I’m talking about impeachment—and Leni could be impeached on other charges, not just cheating, which is why she should watch her back.”
According to my friend, even Marcos understands that an election protest may take years to resolve, maybe the entire six years of Robredo’s term. “And if Bongbong runs for the Senate in 2019, as I predict he will, in order to prepare for a run at the presidency in 2022, his protest against Robredo will fall under the Loren ruling,” he added.
“Bongbong will have been deemed to have abandoned his protest, just like Loren was deemed to have done to her case against Noli de Castro after she ran again for the Senate.”
In an impeachment case, my source said, the people who want Robredo out will not have to wait for the resolution of an election protest. They will only attempt to impeach her in the House as soon as it is possible to do so and to elevate the case to the Senate, which will convene as an impeachment court.
Sounds pretty complicated to me, I said. My friend disagreed.
“All it takes is political determination, as Noynoy Aquino showed us,” he said. “You didn’t think it was possible to impeach Chief Justice Renato Corona in the beginning, as I recall.”
Oh, but I said, seeing an opening of my own, your whole plot will depend on Cayetano convincing Duterte to buy into it. It’s not going to happen if Digong puts his foot down and rains a torrent of invectives on Alan’s head.
“But you are now discounting Cayetano’s deviousness and persistence,” was my friend’s retort. “Remember how Alan basically stalked Duterte to get chosen as Digong’s running mate—and how he is now blocking all attempts to get people identified with “AlDub” [the informal but very popular Duterte-Marcos pairing] appointed to high office?”
Then I remembered how one AlDub adherent named by Digong to a lucrative post recently suddenly became the subject of seven white papers explaining why she was not fit for the post. And the white papers, people in the Duterte camp tell me, have all been traced to Cayetano and his minions.
In the end, I had to agree: Leni Robredo should watch her back. Or as they say back in Naga City, “Loay-loay sana, manay.”